FIR lodged aganist Jamiat men and Siddikullah. But who is saving Siddikullah Choudhury from arrest?

Jamiat holds its Jihadi Rally in Kolkata making civilians hostage for the promotion of Madrasa Terror. 

•  No valid permission for holding such a rally. No permission from the Fire deptt. either.
• At least 11 policemen including 3 IPS officers were injured in brickbatting and 13 police vehicles damaged. 
• Kolkata traffic comes to a standstill. President Pranab Mukherjee forced to change route.
• FIR lodged. But who is managing not to arrest Siddikullah Choudhury? 

Sambuddha Gupta | Spotlight News Agency | Kolkata | 29 Nov 2014:: Again Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind rehearsed well to invade Kolkata and well measured how to capture Kolkata, if a day of Direct Action would come again as the strategy of Muslims to advance Jihad in the name of protest.

The Jamiat supporters made a standstill Saturday as at least two lakhs of supporters in numbers held a massive rally protesting the branding of madrassas as "breeding ground of terrorist activities" following the Oct 2 Burdwan blast linking to some Madrasas in West Bengal.

The administration has taken a battering when it was yet to recover from the bruising battle over BJP's Amit Shah rally on Sunday. Jamiat leaders wanted to hold the meeting on the Brigade grounds (Maidan) but when Army denied permission, they brazenly took over the city. And no, they did not have permission from the fire department either although the government made such a huge issue of it for the BJP rally. Actually, Jamiat had no valid permission for holding such a rally turned violent afterwards.

Taken by surprise, police simply stood by and let some 2 lakh Jamiat supporters run amok in the heart of Kolkata. Even bylanes in south and central Kolkata were clogged. For hours, police had no control over a 3sqkm area besieged by the rallyists. When the cops did try to restore order, they came under attack. News crews were roughed up, too, and a van of 24Ghanta damaged.

'The City of Joy' was ambushed by a Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind rally on Saturday afternoon, putting lakhs of commuters through six hours of anxiety, making the state capital as a 'City of Agony' and forcing President Pranab Mukherjee's route to be changed. At least 11 policemen — including 3 IPS officers — were injured in brickbatting and 13 police vehicles damaged. Journalists were attacked for "intruding on the space meant for rallyists" — which was Red Road, the city's VIP thoroughfare.

The rallyists parked buses and trucks on the Maidan, in violation of the high court-imposed ban, and even parked outside Fort William, forcing Army to deploy Military Police. The "historic" gathering at the Sahid Minar grounds spilled over to the adjoining roads — Bentinck Street, JL Nehru Road, Red Road and Mayo Road — choking the business district and having a ripple effect from north to south. The 3,000-odd cops deployed turned out to be woefully inadequate for a gathering of such strength and such aggressiveness. DC-central D P Singh suffered a head injury that needed three stitches. Joint CP-traffic Supratim Sarkar and DC-south Murli Dhar Sharma, too, were injured as the mob pelted stones and turned Jamiat flagstaffs into lathis.

Jamiat leader Siddiqullah Chowdhury blamed police for the violence. "There was tension when police drove a car through the rally. The (police) action and combative reaction of a section of rallyists are both unwarranted. We have been holding rallies for years. This never happened. I suspect some outsiders sneaked into our rally to discredit us. They need to be punished," he said.

The rallyists started streaming into the city from across Bengal since dawn, but police intelligence failed to gauge the crowd count. "We had informed police that we expected about 1-1.5 lakh people. That's why we wanted to hold the rally at Brigade grounds. The gathering on Saturday turned out to be even bigger," said Chowdhury. Many rallyists were already angry at being denied their chosen venue. Pushing and jostling led to frayed tempers. Reports of a rallyist being hit by a vehicle stoked anger. "The vehicle sped away and police did not try to stop it," said some Jamiat supporters from Basirhat. This triggered a blockade of Red Road and Mayo Road. "When police tried to remove the blockade, trouble erupted," said joint CP-HQ Rajeev Mishra.

Photo source: HJS.

The mob first attacked a vehicle carrying the joint CP-intelligence at Red Road crossing. For a while it was a free-for-all as the mob went on the rampage. People caught in the traffic snarl blamed police's unpreparedness. "By the time senior officers stepped in to control the situation, it had already gone out of hand," said an officer who manned the control room for some time. Several people missed trains and flights. Merchant chambers cancelled meetings and ambulances were stuck in bumper-to-bumper jams.

But, Police allowed an indulgence rather not being prepared beforehand to combat some people's unruly assembling with Jihadi mentality that put the police in awkward situation earlier in Jamiat's 1 lakh assembling in Burdwan city last month.

Till late evening, cops were huddled in a meeting at Lalbazar HQ trying to ascertain where they went wrong despite top IPS officers leading the forces. The embarrassed cops have decided to strike back and have filed two FIRs with 11 serious charges. "We are analyzing CCTV footage and our own videography and will start picking up those who instigated the violence," said an officer.

Truckloads of associates of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind converged at the Shahid Minar grounds in the central part of the city to raise their voices against the linking of terrorist activities with madrassas. The supporters coming to Rally were raising slogans against Central Govt. in Delhi run by BJP . They were in demand to free all Muslims on bail who were arrested so far in the Khagragarh Blast and Shimulia Madrasa terror link.

The accidental bomb explosion in a house in Khagragarh in Burdwan district left two suspected Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) militants dead and another injured and broke the lead on the most sensational jihadi terrorist - Madrasa link in the state in recent times.

The incident brought the madrasas under scanner with the National Investigation Agency, that is probing the blasts, claiming that the accused and other recruits were trained at madrassas in Simulia and Lalgola in Burdwan and Murshidabad districts, respectively.

But, Jamiat leader Siddiqullah Chowdhury said that "Madrassas are not centers for promoting terrorist activities. It is an insult to us... the anti-Islamic comments that are circulating, blaming Muslims for terrorist activities in the state."

Though, a FIR was initiated in the Maidan Police station against the organizers of the rally and Jamiat leader Siddiqullah Chowdhury for unauthorized assembling, disrupting the duties of Govt. personnel, attacking Police on duty etc., nobody was arrested so far under some mysterious instructions from the higher echelon from the 'Nabanna' or 'Harish Chatterjee Street' perhaps. In public mind there is a big question. FIR lodged aganist Jamiat men and Siddikullah. But who is saving Siddikullah Choudhury from arrest?

There is a great commotion in the Police battalion also in these days as they are being sent to the duty almost unarmed with strict direction not to hurt any Muslim mob, even they are creating violence or otherwise attacking Police. This policy as apprehended detrimental to the safety and security of the police contingents on duty may create an unrest in the barrack.

The Calcutta Press Club Association, Indian Journalist Association, Kolkata Journalist Club vehemently condemned the attack ob the journalists on duty by some hooligans attened in the Islamic Rally called by Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind.